Friendly Fire
by sparrowwitch
Summary: Deridre Madigan is a S.H.E.I.L.D. agent working with Agent Clint Barton when an accident involving an Asgardian happens at work. She is changed forever by the Tesseract and has to learn to deal with an addition to her skill set while trying to help the Avengers protect the world. Possible Loki/OC and Hawkeye/ Black Widow.


Faint memories played inside my head as I drifted, weightless, in a deep slumber. The golden sunlight touched my hair as I ran as a child through tall grass. The vegetation tugged on my magenta sun dress as I ran, screaming in delight towards my father. He stood tall, tall as a mountain it seemed to me, and he smiled down at me through his thick Chevron moustache. His eyes didn't twinkle with happiness. Instead, they were dull and looked at me in sadness as if seeing my mother in me. He hugged me and kissed me on the forehead, his dark facial hair prickling my soft, pale skin. I looked up into his grey and brown eyes and suddenly, I heard a confounding racket. My eyes opened to the world of reality and my hand automatically flew to the snooze button of my alarm clock. I closed my eyes and sighed.

Swivelling out of bed, I stared, uncomprehending, at my alarm clock. It flashed 5:00 am at me before it screamed it's fifth wake up call to me. I slammed my hand down on the clock, silencing it, before turning off the alarm. I got up, running a hand through my still wet hair, going past it's short length before remembering that I had just had 2 ft. of my hair cut off. Turning to the mirror, I saw a blurry person standing in front of me, eventually realizing that I needed to get my glasses. I was almost legally blind in one eye, but had an astigmatism in the other, making my eyesight almost exactly the same in both eyes. With my glasses, I walked into the little bathroom that was included in my small yet cozy quarters. My hair was a state of disaster. The recent cut had shortened it from just above my hips to shoulder length and my hair had become a wild tangle of russet hair that poofed out to either side of my heart-shaped face. I quickly braided the front of the mass of hair so it looked like a half milkmaid braid. Then, a voice came over the income," Agent Madigan, please report to your station. Repeat, Agent Madigan, please report to your station."

* * *

I ran through the halls, my hair wisping behind me as I hurried to my position in the laboratories. As I turned the corner at full speed, I grabbed the corner and used my momentum to swing towards a door with an iris scanner. I slowed to a halt and took off my glasses so that the scanner could read my green-brown iris. As the door slid open, I sprinted into the room and climbed up a ladder vigorously, ending up in an alcove at the top of the room from which I could see everything that was happening.

"You're late. Again," a slightly taller but more firmly built agent looked at me in disdain.

"I know, I know. Look, I'm sorry Agent Barton, but I can't be perfect but I am trying damn hard to be, so at least give me some credit," I squawked at the master assassin, all the while setting about my job as security advisor.

"Okay Agent, but I warn you, timeliness is an important skill to have as a S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent and you would do best to remember that," he spoke as he drilled that bit of information into my head with his icy blue eyes. I looked down in shame as I mumbled a reply about how I would try harder. I hated to get on the wrong side of Barton. He was almost like a friend to me and was, most definitely, my closest colleague. I went to my desk. It was made up of four different computer screens and I could control the cameras from the panel on the desk.

All day, I took notes on the scientists who worked on the Tesseract down below the loft. They rushed to please Director Fury, even Dr. Selvig. His grey haired bobbed through the other physicists and engineers they had working on the top secret alien power source. I jotted notes on the physical and mental appearances of those working in the room until something began to go wrong.

It was first evident when Selvig began running around at a faster rate than before. Then, the Tesseract began glowing and blue wisps floated from the cube up to the ceiling where they scorched the ceiling. The machines began bleeping and showing anomalies with the activity of the Tesseract. Something was changing.

* * *

An hour later, a black man with a powerful presence and an eye patch walked into the room.

"Talk to me Doctor," he said in an authoritative voice. Agent Barton looked over from where he sat by the edge, holding the yellow safety bars.

"Director." _So THAT is Director Fury_, I thought. Though I had trained as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, I had not had the privilege to meet the Director. He was, to say the least, intimidating dressed in all black with a trench coat tailing him like the spies he trained. I turneded my camera toward him.

"The Tesseract is misbehaving," said Dr. Selving with certainty. I mulled that phrase over in my head, unsure how to take the fact that Selvig felt the Tesseract alive in any way. I followed their conversation as they flitted between work computers, Fury learning as much as he could about the situation while Selvig tried to fix a problem he didn't understand.

"Where are Agents Barton and Madigan?" inquired Fury. Selvig harrumphed, "The Hawk and the Snake? In the nest as usual." I knew that was our cue to exit our loft.

"Barton, we're wanted," I called to him in a soft, smooth voice, only to see that he had started sliding down a rope attached to the ceiling. Muttering curses in Gaelic, I followed suit as quickly as possible.

"Agents Barton and Madigan, I gave the two of you this detail for a specific reason," Fury spoke menacingly. Barton spoke up, "I see better from a distance." Of course he did. Agent Clint Barton, codename Hawkeye, was like a hawk with crystal clear vision from a distance and incredible aim with a bow and arrows. I, however, could come up with no such excuse. Codenamed Fer-De-Lance, I had a venomous attitude and was sensitive to the heat around me to the point where I could control flames. Fury didn't know about the fires and I wanted it to stay that way.

"I function better with fewer people around," I say weakly but Fury isn't paying me any attention. That is another of my skills. People don't see me unless I care for them to see me. It's quite the useful skill for a spy. However, I sometimes activate it on accident especially when I'm stressed.

A female scientist called Dr. Selvig to a station. I didn't catch what she said to him for something else had caught my attention. The Tesseract was glowing with a burning blue light so intense I could barely keep my eyes directed toward it. I kept my eyes glued to it any ways. Barton was talking to Fury, but I approached the cube, hearing faintly words spoken behind me. Thunder roared in my head as Barton said some clever observation about the Tesseract being a door to Fury. It called me in a slow, enticing voice that beckoned me as I could feel the energy sluicing off of it into the air.

I was now on the verge of touching it when voices screamed out from the blanket of white noise surrounding me.

"Don't touch it!" a distantly familiar voice reached out to me and touched my mind. But, it did not matter. Only the Tesseract mattered. Why couldn't they see that? I could feel it's unimaginable power emanating from every corner of the galaxies. My fingers stretched out to touch that power when a body heaved into me, knocking me through the air and out of my mindless daze.

"Agent Madigan, what exactly do you think you are doing? Do you not remember the reports submitted regarding the destructive capabilities of the Tesseract from the Red Skull incident in World War II?" Fury stood over me, shouting a stream of questions for which I had no answer or was not expected to answer. Instead, I lay on the cool, concrete floor next to Agent Barton who had tackled me, listening to a buzz in my ears that was growing increasingly louder. But suddenly, all was silent as booming footsteps echoed through the minds of a thousand other beings in the galaxy. At that moment, it was known that Earth was under attack and a myriad of beings simply spoke, "He is coming."

* * *

_Hi guys! This is my first story, so please please please review! For all I know it's rubbish. _


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